


Rockin' and A-Reelin'

by Ahelpfulpeach



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beach Episode- now with more chaos, Comedy, F/F, Minor Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Minor Mermista/Sea Hawk (She-Ra), Minor Netossa/Spinnerella (She-Ra), Minor Perfuma/Scorpia (She-Ra), One Shot, POV Adora (She-Ra), Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt, but all played for laughs, everyone is human, in which poor decisions are made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26047264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahelpfulpeach/pseuds/Ahelpfulpeach
Summary: "In retrospect, maybe getting up in the middle of the night because Sea Hawk had a “brilliant plan” was… not, actually a brilliant plan. In fact, getting up at any time for almost any of Sea Hawk’s ideas rarely panned out well. Made for great stories and was generally fun, but not what one might call a good idea."
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 112





	Rockin' and A-Reelin'

**Author's Note:**

> Got a dialogue prompt: "You could have died" on Tumblr, cleaned it up and added a few bits to cross post on here, and this is the result.  
> This is in no way tied to my other series, and probably won't be tied to anything else I write even if it's Modern AU.

In retrospect, maybe getting up in the middle of the night because Sea Hawk had a “brilliant plan” was… not, actually a brilliant plan. In fact, getting up at any time for almost any of Sea Hawk’s ideas rarely panned out well. They made for great stories and were generally fun, but not what one might call a good idea.

“You… the lot of you, are _idiots_.” Netossa sounded tired. Adora could relate; that night—well, morning technically, had been kinda exhausting.

“You could have died,” Spinnerella added, hands on her hips, “You know that, right?”

Nine quiet murmurs of assent from nine soaked and sheepish partners in crime. Well. In all fairness, six partners in crime and three witnesses. Adora was rather solidly in the former group.

In her defense though, it had been Glimmer that roped her in.

* * *

“There you are!” Glimmer hissed, grabbing Adora’s arm.

Adora winced, glancing down the hall. She’d been on her way back to her room, doing her very best to stay quiet—Mermista’s beach house was _enormous_ but also, apparently, very prone to squeaking. As such, she had been quite proud that she managed to make it out the bedroom door without waking Catra, a fitful sleeper at the best of times.

Having a conversation just the other side of the thin wall would definitely cause problems.

So Adora just nodded, a finger to her lips, and let Glimmer drag her down three flights of stairs without comment. That was probably her first mistake, because by the time they were down in the garage and Scorpia let out the quietest cheer, Adora was more or less complicit. After all, she couldn’t just pretend she didn’t see the truly massive stash of fireworks packed in the back of… _her_ truck?

Sea Hawk shrugged sheepishly, but to his credit, didn’t look away when she tried to stare him down, “Mine’s at the marina, and no one else has enough trunk space.”

“Besides, this’ll be so fun!” Glimmer had shifted her grip, both hands around one of Adora’s own, looking up at her with the biggest eyes and most hopeful smile. Which really wasn’t fair. It _absolutely_ wasn’t fair when Scorpia copied her.

Entrapta was already working on securing their cargo when Adora sighed. She knew when she was defeated. And when she kinda wanted to know what was going to happen.

Fighting back a grin, Adora gave Sea Hawk a nod, “Alright, where am I taking the payload, boss?”

Glimmer laughed and high-fived Scorpia, and suddenly Entrapta was tossing Adora her keys, some street clothes, and shoes. Which was helpful since she was in her pjs, but also brought up questions she didn’t quite know if she wanted answered.

“This is part one of my incredible three phase plan,” Sea Hawk announced, apparently unconcerned with the hows and whys of Entrapta’s preparations, and beckoned Adora to his side to show her a list.

“Step one, take the fireworks to the marina and load up my boat. Entrapta, Glimmer, and I will drive the boat back around here. You and Scorpia will return, unmoor that floating deck thing,” he gestured behind him, which didn’t help a lot, seeing as the house was between them and the beach, “And pull it out to the boat.”

“And _how_ , exactly, are we doing that?” Adora asked, glancing at her soon to be partner in crime.

“Oh don’t worry! Sea Hawk showed me how it’s anchored,” Scorpia assured her, “There’s a little buoy we’ll attach so it all doesn’t just sink and we can put the deck back when we’re done.”

Which was good, and honestly a little further along than Adora had been thinking.

“I meant moving the deck, that thing is kinda big.”

Sea Hawk waved her off, “That’s why I wanted you two for this part! Aside from Mermista and myself, you’re the strongest swimmers, and aside from myself, you're the strongest people here!”

Glimmer snorted, Scorpia looked skeptical, and Entrapta-

“While this is really more a longitudinal case study than a true experiment given the number of participants, all data we have shows you tend to perform well below Adora and Scorpia in feats of strength,” she paused, then offered a conciliatory grin, “So does everyone else though.”

“Mm, yes. Well,” Sea Hawk coughed, blushing a little, “In any case, you two should be able to get it out far enough to attach it to my boat.”

Hopping up into the bed of the truck, apparently for dramatic effect, Sea Hawk continued, “That is where step two begins! We will drag the deck out to sea, somewhere calm enough to shift the fireworks onto it and get them set up.”

“I got some special ones from Aunt Casta’s friends! We’ll get the show wired up and ready to go,” Glimmer interjected, almost squealing with delight.

“Then all of us will return here, and step three is just to gather the rest of our friends, drive back out and let them enjoy the show!”

“Why not just pick ‘em up while we’re getting the deck?” Adora asked, mostly on board at this point, if a bit confused, “That’d be quicker.”

“Yes, but if we gather them _after,_ it will be a wonderful surprise! I want to dazzle my love- and the rest of our friends, without making them wait for the set up.”

Fair enough, it _would_ make for a fun surprise; Adora was pretty positive Catra would love it. That said, she also had the sneaking suspicion some of the others might have had reservations about the plan if it wasn’t already in motion.

“Good enough for me! Come on, everyone in then.”

* * *

Things were going smoothly at first. Which was to say, they got to the marina and loaded Sea Hawk’s little pontoon up without issue. Apparently whoever ran security in the middle of the night, if anyone, didn’t care about a bunch of twenty-somethings with a pallet of explosives. Which was a weird thing not to care about, but whatever, it worked in their favor.

Once everything was all set and the other three were on their way, Adora headed back to the beach house with Scorpia.

“We’re really only here to be the muscle, huh?”

“And transportation!” Scorpia said cheerfully, “But yeah, that’s pretty much it. At least it’s something we’re good at!”

Adora laughed and met her fist bump, “Hell yeah.”

Once they got back and out onto the beach, they hit their first snag.

“My suit’s upstairs,” Adora groaned, staring out at the water.

“Oh. Hm, yeah. That’s kinda a problem,” Scorpia said, frowning.

“Don’t suppose Entrapta grabbed one for me?”

Scorpia shook her head, “Sorry, I guess she forgot. Do you care if your clothes get wet?”

“Not really, but I don’t want more weight while we’re dragging that thing.”

There really were only two solutions, and there was absolutely no way in hell Adora was going to go skinny dipping for this.

“I’ll be right back.”

Adora crept back to her room, but it was a moot point and she knew it. Even if she could get back into the room without waking Catra, there was no way she’d be able to go rummaging around for her swim suit silently. And since they were going to be waking everyone up later anyway, maybe a different approach was in order.

“Catra, babe,” Adora whispered as she crawled onto the bed. Catra groaned, reaching back blindly for her. Adora felt her heart jump a little, knew her dopey ‘Catra smile,’ as Bow called it, was firmly in place as she let her girlfriend take her hand, pull her arm around her. If Scorpia wasn’t standing out there in the dark waiting for her, Adora probably would have abandoned the whole plan to cuddle.

“Catraaa.” It was the sing-song tone she knew Catra hated, mostly because it generally meant she wasn’t going to leave something alone.

“If you don’t have a good reason for waking me up at…” she shifted, her silhouette a halo of dark, curly hair, “one twenty in the morning, I will divorce you.”

“...We’re not married.”

“I will make you pay for an extravagant wedding and an extended honeymoon, and _then_ I will divorce you.”

The threat didn’t really connect, not with the idea of a wedding and honeymoon with Catra implanted in her mind. But. That was not the goal here. She needed to focus.

“Wanna go blow stuff up?”

Even in the dim light from the window, Catra’s grin was brilliant.

“I fucking love you.”

* * *

“There you ar- oh! Hi Catra!” Scorpia smiled, apparently willing to take changes to the plan in stride.

“Hey, Scorpia. So, you two are gonna drag that,” she gestured at the deck, anchored just far enough out that it didn’t get stuck in the silt at low tide, “all the way out there.” In the distance, maybe a hundred yards out, Adora could make out the lights on Sea Hawk’s boat.

This was going to suck.

“That’s the plan!” Scorpia replied, still all good cheer.

The look on Catra’s face pretty clearly read, ‘That’s a shitty plan,’ but she didn’t give voice to it, instead considering the dock for a moment.

“I can give you two and extra pair of hands if I can get a ride.”

Scorpia winced, “Oh, gee, Wildcat, thanks, but it’s just... It’s pretty hea-”

“Sure!”

Adora did her best to ignore the look Scorpia gave her. She didn’t have room to talk, Adora watched her carry a whole baby tree back from the farmer’s market for Perfuma a couple days ago. Not a little one either, like, ficus sized. Sure, no one else suffered for her chance to show off and dote on her girlfriend, but this was different. Somehow.

They were pulling that thing out regardless, and Adora doubted one person’s worth of extra weight was going to really change much. Or at least she hoped so. Besides, Scorpia knew as well as anyone that Catra wasn’t a great swimmer, so this was being a good friend on top of everything else.

For her part, Catra looked a little surprised, like she hadn’t expected to be taken seriously. The shock quickly gave way to a grateful grin, and Adora melted, because she pretty much _always_ did when Catra smiled at her. Honestly, a perfectly reasonable response.

Catra walked past both of them, grabbing the float Scorpia had mentioned—not so much a buoy as one of those plastic things on lane lines at the pool—on her way to the shoreline.

“Come on, I wanna see things explode.”

* * *

As Adora suspected it would, dragging the deck sucked. Immensely. The extra pair of hands actually did wind up being useful while they secured the float, but moving the deck was, in short, awful.

She’d thought— _hoped_ —that maybe having Catra there would make it better. Proving her strength to her friends was a lot of fun, but showing off for her girlfriend was even better. Usually. Because usually said showing off was arm wrestling or picking people up or carrying heavy stuff or throwing things—or people, Glimmer’s foster sister, Frosta, was a huge fan of just being hurled into the nearest body of water—really far.

Apparently dragging heavy objects while swimming did not fall on that list.

The waves had to be the worst part, as they were still close enough to shore that the water was just kinda choppy by nature. More than once, both Adora and Scorpia got pushed back against the deck, and Adora knew pretty much her whole body was going to be sporting scrapes from the rough underside of it. Scorpia probably wasn’t fairing much better, if the grimace that had permanently etched itself on her face was anything to go by.

Catra had been pretty quiet apart from the occasional hisses and grunts of sympathy. A bit of a departure from her usual teasing and friendly insults, but a welcome one.

Finally, by some sort of celestial intervention, they made it. Adora wasn’t quite sure what happened in the blur between touching the back of the boat and being handed a water bottle. What she did know was somewhere in there she’d been bundled in a towel, pushed onto a seat, and surrounded, Catra on one side with Scorpia just beyond her, looking similarly out of it, and Glimmer on the other.

“Okay, so, we’re _not_ doing that on the way back,” Glimmer announced, daring someone to challenge her.

“I… am inclined to agree,” Sea Hawk said, his head bowed, “I’m terribly sorry ladies, I underestimated the effort that would go into this part of the plan.”

Still catching her breath, and wondering if her body would ever stop throbbing, Adora just gave him a shaky thumbs up.

“We should probably get out to the launch site,” Entrapta’s voice was coming from somewhere, but Adora’s head had found its way to Catra’s shoulder and she was far too comfy to turn and look, “so you guys didn’t drag this over here for nothing.”

Sea Hawk nodded sharply, the grin returning to his face, “You’re quite right! Let’s get going!”

* * *

Between the rest, water, and cool night air, Adora started feeling a little more coherent pretty quickly, though she didn’t give up her spot against Catra, just shifted to make herself more comfortable.

“Feeling better?” Glimmer laughed as Adora propped her feet in her lap.

“Yeah. How long did it take us?”

“Probably not as long as it felt, about fifteen minutes?” Glimmer glanced over her shoulder, and Adora felt Catra nod.

Definitely not as long as it felt. Somewhere to her right, Adora could hear Scorpia’s pained groan.

“Good news is, your part in the plan is over,” Sea Hawk called from the driver’s seat, “You two can just relax and enjoy the show!”

Going by the number of launchers and rockets, it was gonna be a sight to see. Definitely worth it. Probably. Hopefully. Definitely worth the swim at least, hopefully worth the days of sore muscles and tender scrapes.

Speaking of—Adora hissed as one of Catra’s hands slipped under the towel, accidentally brushing over raw skin as she searched for her hand.

“Shit, sorry,” Catra murmured, lacing their fingers and giving her hand a squeeze, “I bet there’s some sorta antibiotic pain reliever stuff in the first aid kit, you want me to grab it?”

Adora shook her head, “Nah, you make a good pillow. Plus we’re gonna have to swim back once we’re done.”

“Uh, no,” Glimmer’s voice allowed no room for argument, “You and Scorpia have done all the swimming you’re going to for tonight. You’ll ride back to the marina with Sea Hawk, and I’ll pick you guys up.”

“And the deck?”

“We… will figure that out.”

* * *

Once they got out to calmer waters, the set up took a lot less time than the bulk of their cargo suggested. Between Entrapta, Glimmer, and Sea Hawk, everything was attached to the deck, loaded, and programmed to Entrapta’s controls in under half an hour.

“I did some of the work on the way out here,” Entrapta explained, presumably to Catra. She’d gotten up to help offload the fireworks, and stayed by the front of the boat to watch, a gleam in her eyes.

“Dude, this is going to be awesome,” she breathed, leaning forward a little toward the platform.

“It will! Glimmer was able to obtain several of those fancier fireworks with multiple colors and delayed bursts, so assuming they work as intended, we’ll practically have a professional show!”

Catra and Entrapta kept talking, and Adora would have been happy to continue just watching when Scorpia tapped her shoulder.

“Hey uh. I don’t know a lot about pyrotechnics, but do you think the deck looks kinda… Crowded?”

It did. Granted, Adora had no idea how much space should be between the various launchpads, but her instincts said ‘more than that.’

“Yeah… but they’d know, right? At least Glimmer and Entrapta?”

Scorpia shrugged, “Probably.”

“Could one of you lovely ladies hand me the extra anchor? I’d like to make sure our work doesn’t float away!”

Both Adora and Scorpia stood to help, concerns forgotten, only for Catra to come and scoop it up, shaking her head at them.

“Sit.”

They sat.

Catra handed the anchor over, then returned, plopping between them and flicking Adora’s forehead.

“Like Sparkles said, you’ve done your share. Relax.”

Well, Adora certainly wasn’t getting up again, not with Catra starting to lean against her, practically in her lap. It would disturb her, and that would be rude.

* * *

The last of the set up and the ride back were uneventful, but pleasant. Adora mostly dozed, sprawled across the bench seat, Catra keeping her pinned and unable to be helpful. When she opened her eyes and sat up again, they were back at the beach house, and she could see the others walking down to the water with varying levels of enthusiasm.

Adora couldn’t quite make out who was who in the dark at that distance, but there definitely weren’t enough people.

“We’re missing a couple people,” she mumbled, trying to wake up again. They’d get to sleep for real soon, but first explosions and pretty colors.

“It’s nearly three AM, they probably wanted to sleep.”

As it turned out, it was Spinnerella and Netossa, and they simply were nowhere to be found.

“Secret late night date?” Bow suggested with a shrug.

“It literally doesn’t matter, they’re allowed to do what they want,” Mermista groaned, falling on one of the seats, “Let’s go see this thing so we can go back to sleep.”

“It will be worth it, dearest, I promise!”

Perfuma had settled beside Scorpia, and they were whispering with huge grins. So much for the surprise there, but Adora couldn’t really fault her, not with Catra still snuggled against her, though slightly more upright now to make room for the rest of the passengers.

“Alright, everyone take your seats, and we will begin our adventure!”

“Um, wait. Where did the deck go?”

“...All will be explained!”

* * *

As plans pretty much always seemed to, particularly with their friend group, this one fell apart.

Not immediately. They got out to the predetermined viewing coordinates, picked by Entrapta to give them ‘the optimal viewing angle,’ and set off the first few rockets. The conversations that had picked up on the way over stopped as they exploded overhead. A pause, then Mermista started laughing.

“Of course _you_ would wake us up to set things on fire.” Despite the words, Mermista was beaming, and Sea Hawk’s utterly smitten look almost made Adora forgive him for making her deal with that stupid deck. Almost.

“There’s more!” Entrapta called, gleefully setting off the next round. Everything was going great, the three—well, two—of them who actually were surprised seemed thrilled, and even though she knew the gist of what was coming, the actual show was pretty impressive.

“Worth it?” Adora asked, wrapping her arms around Catra a little tighter.

“Guess I’m not divorcing you after all,” she laughed, stealing a kiss before settling back to watch.

Adora glanced around at the others. Mermista had perched on the arm of the driver’s seat, chin on Sea Hawk’s head, his arm around her waist. With most of the attention off her, her expression was soft, still a bit tired, but clearly happy. Sea Hawk looked about ready to cry with joy.

Scorpia and Perfuma were cuddled close to one another, still whispering every once in a while. Adora didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about, but it had Perfuma giggling almost non-stop, and Scorpia seemed delighted with that.

Glimmer had, at some point, stood up on her seat, watching the show with a huge, satisfied grin. Or at least, usually watching the show. Her attention wandered every once in a while, down to Bow, who’d stood beside her where she held his hand for balance. That grin didn’t change no matter what she was looking at, and it was mirrored in the moments Bow looked back up at her.

Entrapta was filming the whole thing on her phone, talking to it quietly. A video for Tal, probably. She seemed pleased with her work, at least at first. As the volley of explosions continued, she suddenly paused, looking concerned. Shoving her phone in her pocket, she began rapidly fiddling with the control panel, muttering something. That was a worrying thing at the best of times, like when she was controlling a toy, but they were on a boat, in the ocean, and that thing was controlling explosives.

Sudden, rapidfire crackling and light at sea level brought everyone’s attention from the sky. The thundering _boom_ that came after left everyone but Entrapta frozen.

“We need to be not here _right now._ ”

A lot of things happened very quickly after that.

First was Sea Hawk, gunning the engine, only to realize a bit too late he’d anchored the boat.

Then Glimmer fell _off_ the boat, and Bow went after her pretty much immediately. Which wasn’t ideal, or really necessary; Glimmer could swim just fine.

At almost that same time, it became very clear why Entrapta declared they should not be where they were, as rockets started flying in very not upwards directions. Also they could see the deck. Why could they see the deck? The deck should have been further away.

“The anchor,” Sea Hawk gasped

“What?”

“On it!”

“No! I mean, yes that, but also I…”

Adora didn’t quite know when she got up, but she was pulling Bow and Glimmer back onto the boat when Catra snapped.

“You _forgot_?!”

“Or maybe it wasn’t heavy enough! I don’t know!”

“The anchor’s up!” Perfuma called at about the same time the canvas cover over the back half of the pontoon lit up.

“Life jackets! Now, please!”

“Oh my god, this is the _third_ fucking boat…”

* * *

As it turned out, Netossa had a boat of her own. She and Spinnerella had been taking a cruise along the coast, enjoying a little time alone, stargazing, when the fireworks caught their attention. Not long after, they found their housemates bobbing a few dozen yards from Sea Hawk’s burning boat, backlit by the also very on fire floating deck.

One rescue mission later, they were back in the beach house living room, facing what Adora could only assume would be execution.

“In our defense,” Sea Hawk winced as the entire line whipped around to make gestures of varying levels of violence, all indicating ‘ _Stop talking._ ’

“In our defense,” he continued regardless, “no one _did_ die. Or even got hurt!”

“What happened to them?!” Spinnerella snapped, pointing to. Oh. Pointing to Adora, and Scorpia.

“That wasn’t… entirely his fault,” Adora stepped in.

“What happened then?”

A glance. Scorpia shrugged, eyes wide.

“We, uh. Got scraped up on the bottom of the deck.”

“How?”

Adora looked down.

“’Cause we were pulling it.”

She was positive one of the two older women were going to… She didn’t know. Bury them at sea? Send them back out on a funeral pyre of their own making?

Instead, there was a heavy sigh. Netossa rubbed her eyes, muttering something to herself before addressing the group.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Assuming no patrols have already found the boat, we’re going to go get that back to shore-”

“We lifted the anchor though,” Perfuma interjected, “Just before it caught on fire.”

Netossa looked like she was trying _really_ hard to keep from shouting. Spinnerella’s eyes were closed, jaw clenched.

“We’ll try to find it, because it’s Sea Hawk’s, and it’s registered to him. Spinny has a friend who fixes boats, so if it’s salvageable, we’ll see what we can do.”

“As for the deck,” Spinnerella took over, “Mermista, you never had a deck. None of you know anything about fireworks.”

“I got them from my aunt’s friend, so we should be okay there,” Glimmer said as everyone else nodded.

Netossa let out a sigh of relief “Good. Adora, Scorpia? Let’s get the two of you cleaned up and bandaged… actually, you guys can handle that, right?”

Nods all around.

“Okay. Okay, good. Sea Hawk, you come with us and we’ll try to find your boat.”

He nodded, looking absolutely miserable as he trudged after the older women.

Mermista sighed, then walked after him, “I’ll come with.” Sea Hawk brightened up pretty much immediately, sharing a little smile with her.

“It was pretty cool while it lasted!” Bow offered with a little thumbs up as the four of them exited.

“It really was,” Perfuma said gently, “I think it was a lovely idea that unfortunately had technical difficulties.”

“And maybe too many fireworks,” Scorpia added.

Entrapta sighed, “That… could possibly be the issue. I probably should have looked into that a bit more. But!” she grinned, “Now we know for next time!”

Adora wasn’t sure what it said about her that she _wasn’t_ dreading that ‘next time.’ Minus the whole almost getting set on fire bit, it had been pretty fun. Well. And the dragging the deck bit. That was pretty awful.

Getting the scrapes cleaned up wasn’t great fun either. The shower burned and the ointment was greasy and the tape around the bandages itched, but at least it was Catra helping her with it. Counting her freckles, now even more numerous thanks to several days in the sun, was a great distraction.

“Adora?”

Oh.

“Sorry, I’m awake enough for about one train of thought, what’d you say?”

Catra stood, gently pulling her to her feet from the rim of the tub.

“I said, ‘Let’s go to bed.’”

That sounded _lovely_ , as that was what she’d been trying to do since she left the bathroom earlier that night. Rather than respond, Adora once again let herself be led, back to their bedroom this time instead of down the stairs. The door creaked as they opened it, and scraped on the doorframe when Catra kicked it closed, but this time they didn’t have to worry about waking someone up. And this time when Catra pulled Adora’s arm around her, Adora pulled her a little closer, ready to dream about that extravagant wedding and extended honeymoon.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Barbara Ann" by The Beach Boys 
> 
> Might see some more of these prompt fics while I work through some writer's block 'cause they're pretty chill and I don't overthink them as hard as I do everything else. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr @ahelpfulpeach if you wanna chat :D


End file.
